Cuttack Chandi: The Devi of a Silver City and Her Sixteen Day Durga Puja

What sets Cuttack Chandi apart is the length of its Durga Puja.

• Where most Durga Pujas run through Shashthi to Dashami, roughly five days, the observance here runs for sixteen days
• It begins on Mulashtami, in the dark fortnight preceding Navratri, and continues through Navratri to Vijayadashami
• Each day has its own rites, and the Devi is presented in a different form through the sequence
• The final days follow the standard Durga Puja pattern with Ashtami, Sandhi Puja, Navami and Dashami

The city's whole calendar bends around it. Cuttack's Durga Puja is among the largest in eastern India outside Kolkata, with the pandals of the city's puja committees running alongside the temple observance.

What distinguishes Cuttack's pandals is the silver and gold filigree medha, the backdrop behind the deity, made by the city's own craftsmen.

Cuttack has been a centre of tarakasi, silver filigree work, for centuries, and the puja committees commission enormous filigree backdrops that take months to make and represent a substantial part of the city's craft economy. Some of these medhas are decades old and are brought out each year.

Outside the puja season, the temple runs as the city's principal working shrine.

• Daily aarti and worship at fixed times, with the morning and evening drawing the largest attendance
• Offerings of flowers, sindoor, chunari, coconut and sweets
• Bhog prepared and distributed
• Tuesdays and Fridays as the days of heaviest local footfall
• Families bringing newborns for first darshan, and children for mundan
• Students, businesspeople and officials coming before examinations, ventures and postings

The temple also has a role in the civic life of Cuttack that goes beyond worship. Public occasions in the city are frequently marked at the temple, and the Devi's name appears in the naming of institutions, businesses and events across the district.

During Navratri and the sixteen day puja, the temple is at its busiest, with queues extending well beyond the compound and the city administration managing crowds and traffic through the period.

For a visitor, an ordinary morning gives you a working Odia temple: the ritual, the flower sellers, the queue of families and the aarti, without the scale of the festival.

Understanding the temple means understanding the city, since the two are closely tied.

What Cuttack is:

• Odisha's old capital, founded in the medieval period at the junction of the Mahanadi and Kathajodi
• The state's commercial and legal centre, with the High Court and the older institutions
• A city of craft, particularly tarakasi, the silver filigree work for which it is known across India
• The site of Barabati fort, the medieval fortification of the Ganga and Gajapati periods

The filigree connection matters to the temple directly. The medhas of the Durga Puja are the largest expression of the craft, and the trade sustains a substantial number of families in the old city.

Other sites in and around Cuttack:

• Dhabaleswar, the island Shiva temple in the Mahanadi
• Barabati fort and the Cuttack ghats
• Netaji birthplace museum, in the house where Subhas Chandra Bose was born
• Bhubaneswar, about 30 km, with the great temple city of Lingaraj, Mukteswar and Rajarani
• Ratnagiri, Udayagiri and Lalitgiri, the Buddhist sites of the Assia hills, within a day trip

Cuttack works well as a base for the whole cluster, and the temple is a natural first stop.

Odisha's Shakta tradition is substantial and often overlooked because of the scale of Jagannath.

The principal Devi sites:

• Cuttack Chandi, the presiding Devi of Cuttack
• Biraja at Jajpur, an ancient and highly significant shrine
• Sarala Devi at Jhankad, associated with the poet Sarala Das
• Tara Tarini near Berhampur, on the Rushikulya, a major hill shrine
• Maa Tarini at Ghatgaon, whose name is on trucks and buses across the state
• Samaleswari at Sambalpur, the presiding Devi of western Odisha
• Bhattarika on the Mahanadi at Baramba
• Chausathi Jogini at Hirapur, the sixty four yogini temple
• Kichakeswari at Khiching in Mayurbhanj

What runs through them is a pattern seen across eastern India. Each region has its presiding Devi, each is treated as the owner of her territory, and the relationship is protective and local rather than doctrinal.

It is also worth noting the relationship with Jagannath. In Odia tradition the Devi shrines and the Jagannath tradition are not in competition. Vimala, within the Puri temple itself, is a Shakta shrine of great significance, and the mahaprasad of Jagannath is offered to her before it is distributed.

Practical notes.

Getting there

• The temple is in the old city of Cuttack, near the Mahanadi
• Cuttack Junction is a major railway station on the Howrah to Chennai line
• Bhubaneswar airport is about 30 km away
• Autos run throughout the city and the temple is known to every driver

When to go

• The sixteen day Durga Puja, from Mulashtami through Vijayadashami, the city's greatest occasion
• Chaitra Navratri, the spring observance
• Tuesdays and Fridays through the year for the weekly rhythm
• Ordinary mornings for a calm darshan

At the temple

• Offerings are flowers, sindoor, chunari, coconut and sweets, sold in the lanes outside
• Dress modestly and remove footwear at the designated place
• Follow the queue arrangements during Durga Puja, which are strictly managed
• Photography restrictions may apply in the sanctum

During Durga Puja

• The city is extremely crowded, with pandal hopping running through the nights
• See the silver filigree medhas, which are what makes Cuttack's puja distinctive
• Book accommodation well ahead, since the city fills
• Expect traffic restrictions and plan to walk

A closing suggestion. If you can time a visit for the Durga Puja, do. Cuttack's silver medhas are unlike anything at any other puja in India, and they exist because a temple and a craft grew up in the same city and have been working together for a very long time.